The latest issue of Money Fund Intelligence, Crane Data's flagship monthly publication, features the articles entitled, "RIP Floating NAV? Battle Now Over Liquidity Bank," which discusses comment letters on the President's Working Group Report on Money Market Fund Reforms and future regulation of funds; "BlackRock's New Co-Heads of Cash Speak," which interviews money fund veterans Rich Hoerner and Simon Mendelson; and, "Funds See Shadow NAVs, Surprisingly Few < 1.0000," which discusses the recent release of money funds' Form N-MFP and fund's "shadow" prices. Our monthly newsletter also features money fund news, performance tables, rankings, our Crane Indexes and top-performing fund tables.
The RIP Floating NAV piece says, "Though nothing of course is certain, the latest batch of comment letters on the President's Working Group Report on Money Market Fund Reform makes it clear that the idea of a floating NAV for money funds continues to be wildly unpopular. The letters, most of which were posted on the January 10th deadline, almost unanimously opposed the concept of a floating rate NAV. Given that this was the idea's second chance to gather support, and it again failed miserably, we think we can now say, 'Rest in peace.'" We quote letters from Dreyfus, JPMorgan, Fidelity, and USAA.
The BlackRock Profile states, "This month, Money Fund Intelligence interviews BlackRock Managing Directors and new Co-Heads of Global Cash Management and Securities Lending, Rich Hoerner and Simon Mendelson. We ask the two veterans about BlackRock's recent mergers, about the company's excellent long-term safety record, and about recent hot topics involving money market funds." Look for excerpts from our Q&A in coming weeks.
MFI also discusses the new "shadow" NAV disclosures. The article says, "Last week, the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission began posting money market mutual funds' new Form N-MFP, monthly filings which contains "shadow" NAVs delayed by 60 days. The S.E.C. writes, '[I]nvestors can for the first time access detailed information that money market funds file with the Commission -- including information about a fund's investments and the market-based price of its portfolio known as its 'shadow NAV' (net asset value) or mark-to-market valuation.'"
The piece explains, "Starting with the current February issue, Crane Data has added shadow NAV statistics to our monthly Money Fund Intelligence XLS (available to subscribers only). Our initial collection of the Nov. 30 shadow NAV prices show that just 105 out of the 761 funds we've collected so far, or 12.7%, show shadow NAVs of $0.9999 or lower. Almost half of these (50) have mark-to-market prices of 0.9999 and the rest have NAVs ranging from 0.9998 to 0.9979. Just 6 are below 0.9990."
Finally, MFI's "Money Fund News" also features briefs about money fund assets falling to $2.7 trillion, Moody's backing away from its controversial money fund ratings proposals, the NY Fed lowering its reverse repo counterparty criteria, and more. Crane Data's Money Fund Intelligence is $500 a year and includes access to archived issues and additional tools via www.cranedata.com. E-mail Kaio for a sample issue or call 1-508-439-4419 to subscribe.
